Political Question about Austin (Howe: health insurance, homes, buying)
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I'm amused by the fact that the most vocal gripe about Austin's public transit on this page is posted by someone who lives in Avery Ranch, a classic suburban no-public-transit safe-schools 30-minute-commute upper-middle-class white not-quite-gated "community." If you want to stop depending on driving everywhere, why purchase a home in a place that has zero connection to the city?
Developers have wrecked ALL sunbelt cities. It's not particular to Austin. When people compare Austin to San Francisco it's apples to octopus. SF had the same population it has today decades ago. Austin doubles in size every couple decades (or less.) Places with rapid growth in the era of car domination are, not surprisingly, dominated by cars. Big whoop. Austin is struggling valiantly with extremely limited resources and a horrible infrastructure to create more public transit options. The problem isn't a lack of will, it's a lack of ability to take a typical sprawling sunbelt metro area from car-dominance to the more condensed type of city that was developed prior to autos (NY, Boston, SF, etc.) Give Austin credit for being dealt a horrible deck of cards and trying to make the best of a bad situation.
It doesn't help that the state legislature is anti-Austin and refuses to allow us to progress with rail, ETJ controls, and other initiatives to stem the tide of sprawl. Texas loves to let developers do whatever they want with land. That's the ugly side of Libertarianism --- it's liberty for the rich and no true freedom for the poor. Hence libertarianism's conservative identity.
I think your comments are very relevent and appropriate. Yet - it appears that you think governments should forcefully drive people to live closer together. They can do that by limiting the ability of landowners to sell their land to developers, they can control what developers do with the land, etc. I agree sprawl has some undesirable impact.
But I refuse to just accept that more density or a more urban approach is automatically good. Land is plentiful in Texas so it will be used. How much control over its use is appropriate? And how reasonable is it to limit the choices of people that don't want to live right next to other people, businesses, etc. and all the things that go with it?
I think your comments are very relevent and appropriate. Yet - it appears that you think governments should forcefully drive people to live closer together. They can do that by limiting the ability of landowners to sell their land to developers, they can control what developers do with the land, etc. I agree sprawl has some undesirable impact.
But I refuse to just accept that more density or a more urban approach is automatically good. Land is plentiful in Texas so it will be used. How much control over its use is appropriate? And how reasonable is it to limit the choices of people that don't want to live right next to other people, businesses, etc. and all the things that go with it?
This is a great point; what is the appropriate way to allocate who gets to live where? In the "liberal utopia", most people will live in compact, dense urban environments, where they can walk or ride their bike nearby within the neighborhood to everything they need (work, school, grocery etc). But who gets to live in the nicer areas, and who gets to live next to the 'local' factory or the 'local' steelmill, etc?
I can tell you, I live in a really great area in Chicago (Lincoln Park/Lakeview) and it was ONLY in the last 15 years that these neighborhoods became liveable; before 15 years ago, the area was DUE EAST (within a quarter mile) of a heavy industrial area (Elston Ave), which had steel mills and factories, which pushed really smelly pollution into the immediate area. Granted, there were a LOT of reason that people started wanting to live in the cities again, but for this, no one wanted to live near these factories, but as they started closing these old factories (and converting them into lofts), suddenly, it became popular and fun to live here.
So, liberals, who gets to live near the steel mill? how do you determine this in your liberal utopia? Again, someone gets to be the winner and someone gets to be the loser and there is no way around this.
...it appears that you think governments should forcefully drive people to live closer together. They can do that by limiting the ability of landowners to sell their land to developers, they can control what developers do with the land, etc. I agree sprawl has some undesirable impact.
But I refuse to just accept that more density or a more urban approach is automatically good. Land is plentiful in Texas so it will be used. How much control over its use is appropriate? And how reasonable is it to limit the choices of people that don't want to live right next to other people, businesses, etc. and all the things that go with it?
All excellent questions and the subject of a never-ending debate. I don't favor government mandates so much as incentives. A hefty gas tax, for example, would go a very long way toward solving the problems associated with sprawl. It would also be the most fair manner to fund roads and other transit infrastructure, while discouraging long commutes and inefficient cars. It's the free market solution to many problems but it is opposed by the same people who extol the virtues of the free market.
Quote:
Originally Posted by SmartGXL
This is a great point; what is the appropriate way to allocate who gets to live where? In the "liberal utopia", most people will live in compact, dense urban environments, where they can walk or ride their bike nearby within the neighborhood to everything they need (work, school, grocery etc). But who gets to live in the nicer areas, and who gets to live next to the 'local' factory or the 'local' steelmill, etc?
This assumes that we should continue to accept the gross inequality that we see in the USA, where an entertainer or hedge fund manager makes more money in a few minutes than millions of people have to live on for a year. Another assumption is that someone has to live near coal plants and factories. Why should this be true? There can be industrial zones serviced by mass transit, linked to clean green neighborhoods where people shop, attend school, work in offices, go to the doctor, etc.
All excellent questions and the subject of a never-ending debate. I don't favor government mandates so much as incentives. A hefty gas tax, for example, would go a very long way toward solving the problems associated with sprawl. It would also be the most fair manner to fund roads and other transit infrastructure, while discouraging long commutes and inefficient cars. It's the free market solution to many problems but it is opposed by the same people who extol the virtues of the free market.
This assumes that we should continue to accept the gross inequality that we see in the USA, where an entertainer or hedge fund manager makes more money in a few minutes than millions of people have to live on for a year. Another assumption is that someone has to live near coal plants and factories. Why should this be true? There can be industrial zones serviced by mass transit, linked to clean green neighborhoods where people shop, attend school, work in offices, go to the doctor, etc.
I agree gas taxes can be used to raise funds and to modify behavior. Gas taxes are more closely tied to use of the roads and energy than a tax on mileage driven (for example).
As for inequality - I don't accept that inequality is per se a bad thing. As long as people pay money for tickets to baskeball games and TV networks pay to broadcast the games the players will make big money. There is no reasonable role for the government to interfere in that market. Same with entertainers. Hedge fund managers may be a different issue since taxation of their gains for now is treated differently than it is for conventional fund managers.
Simplifying taxation to eliminate deductions and breaks across the board would take away a few of the tricks used by wealthy people to minimize taxes.
Part of the problem (certain the only part) may lie with the fact that developers have gotten away with building the homes and making their huge profits without having to support the infrastructure that is required. So cities have been straddled with the highway/rapid transit/facilities/parks, etc. costs, as well as other expenses. Too much development without that kind of planning and accountability on the part of the developers results in massive home tracts and a city that can't afford to support them properly. It has been too easy for developers to do their thing, and they have not been made to carry their load.
Last edited by G Grasshopper; 01-15-2010 at 06:43 PM..
Reason: Oops - I meant to say "NOT the only part"
Some time ago when I was working on school bond issues - we socialized how it just didn't seem right that a new resident moving into a school district benefits from decades of taxes paid by their neighbors. We wanted the ability to levy a "newcomer" tax to help offset their new impact to the school district.
Of course we couldn't do that. And it is never simple - since a newcomer without children might reasonably argue that they aren't impacted the school negatively at all.
All excellent questions and the subject of a never-ending debate. I don't favor government mandates so much as incentives. A hefty gas tax, for example, would go a very long way toward solving the problems associated with sprawl. It would also be the most fair manner to fund roads and other transit infrastructure, while discouraging long commutes and inefficient cars. It's the free market solution to many problems but it is opposed by the same people who extol the virtues of the free market.
You know, your "incentive" appears to be just as punitive as a mandate. To me, an incentive is something that encourages someone to want to do a particular desired action because they honestly see it as the best thing to do, not something that punishes them if they don't.
It's a whole different way of looking at the world, I grant you, from the viewpoint that "people must be made somehow to do what I, in my infinite wisdom, think they should".
Actually there are usually a lot of "conservative" marchers up there complaining about taking away our rights for something or another... or shouting that all we need are MORE guns... or that we should take away science... how we should keep lowering taxes but can't find $ to pay for stuff... or maybe all carry gold or whatever.
Kidding! Ok, not really
Either way it is always interesting and I think it helps make this city what it is.
I think your comments are very relevent and appropriate. Yet - it appears that you think governments should forcefully drive people to live closer together. They can do that by limiting the ability of landowners to sell their land to developers, they can control what developers do with the land, etc. I agree sprawl has some undesirable impact.
But I refuse to just accept that more density or a more urban approach is automatically good. Land is plentiful in Texas so it will be used. How much control over its use is appropriate? And how reasonable is it to limit the choices of people that don't want to live right next to other people, businesses, etc. and all the things that go with it?
There is no such thing as "governments forcing people", only people forcing each other. What I would say is I would be against the federal government doing this, but at the state or local level, each community should be able to determine how many or how few rules they want. As long as there are choices, yo ucan find the community you want. For example I want to live in an HOA community, IC_delight absolutely does not.
Would I want the city to uniformly adopt the same rules as the HOA, no!
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